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by Andrew Lam-Po-Tang
Two weeks ago the State of Design Festival concluded in Victoria, and last week the Sydney Design Week 2004 finished up. For a country the size of Australia we are pretty lucky to have what amounted to nearly four solid weeks of such breadth and depth of content and speakers.
Some pundits estimate that over 5000 people attended at least one part of the State of Design Festival program (official estimates have not yet been released). And prior to the State of Design Festival, AGDA Victoria's Refresh program was a resounding success with over 100 graphic designers participating - pretty amazing for what was effectively a local conference.
As an attendee and participant in the State of Design Festival, I was energised, inspired and delighted by what I saw and heard, and by the people I met - and I am assuming people had similar experiences during Sydney Design Week.
Sure, it was a pretty intense few days, but the extra "investment" of time was well worth it in terms of rejuvenating my interest and engagement in design, and updating my awareness of the Australia's latest achievements in design. And sure, not every session was a winner, but overall it all added up to a pretty damn good experience.
Design can be a very lonely game at times - do yourself a favour and get out there amongst your own community! It will certainly lift your energy level, and probably help you lift your game.
(For those of you who can be in Sydney at the end of October, I reckon the AGDA Awards weekend will be a blast - see you there)
| Feedback by Greg Branson | Tuesday, 17 August 2004 |
"The State of Design Festival is a good start and the Victorian Government is to be applauded for investing in design. However the real measure of its success is in how much it promoted design to 'non-designers'. The events I attended were only designers talking to designers. We need to broaden the scope and get business owners, marketers, manufacturers and the general public involved with design through the Design Festival."
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The views expressed this article are not necessarily those of AGDA. Please note that the information in this article is the opinion of the author only. I can therefore accept no responsibility for actions taken on the basis of this information. Copyright Andrew Lam-Po-Tang (andrew@lam-po-tang com), 1998-2008. Permission is granted to freely copy this document in electronic form, or to print, for personal use. Reprinting for non-personal use will require the express permission of the author (which I will generally be very happy to give).
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